


Lost

by sunryder



Series: Try Again [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Smallville, Superman - All Media Types
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, M/M, Trope Bingo Round 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-26
Updated: 2013-07-26
Packaged: 2017-12-21 09:50:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/898884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunryder/pseuds/sunryder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Tim's world breaks down, Kon comes for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost

**Author's Note:**

> Fills my Trope Bingo square for AU: Alternate Gender Norms.

 

His pocket was buzzing. 

 

It took Tim three seconds to remember that he'd even brought his phone and another two seconds to hope that maybe it was Bruce calling to apologize. To know where he'd gone. 

 

Only, Bruce hated cell phones. There were too many variables about what could be going on on the other end of the line. Brucie thought phones were the greatest, always demanding the latest model though he never could quite figure out how to make them work. The Batman shared Bruce's disdain and preferred to appear out of nowhere so he could force the conversation on his own terms. 

 

No, whatever the personality, Bruce wouldn't be calling him. 

 

By the time Tim remembered this, his phone buzzed a second time. 

 

Even if Bruce believed in using insecure auditory communication, he still wouldn't have called. You don't apologize unless you're certain you're wrong, and Bruce didn't believe he was wrong. 

 

"He's my son," Bruce had said. "He's my _son_." 

 

That was Bruce's justification. The Boy had popped up out of nowhere and tried to kill Tim to take his "rightful place at my father's right hand," and all Bruce would say was "He's my son". 

 

Bruce had raised Tim, adopted him, pulled him away from the still warm corpse of his father. But apparently that didn't mean anything when it came down to blood. When it came down to Batman having an Alpha to call his heir rather than an Omega boy who had to be dosed with Beta pheromones to even participate in the mission. 

 

Despite his training, when Bruce declared the Boy his son like that matter, Tim had still flinched back like he'd been slapped. There was a vicious triumph in the Boy's eyes at Tim's perceived weakness, and rather than stay around letting the Boy take shots at him, Tim walked away. Out of the batcave, out of the manor. He was still Tim, and Tim was a planner, so he stopped by the spare room that had formerly been his to strip himself of everything that had come to him by way of Bruce. 

 

Bruce--or rather, Alfred--was quite free with the material things. Clothes, books, electronics, all lining the walls of the room that had been his since before Bruce had accepted him as Robin. Instead, he filled the sturdiest of his backpacks with several spare shirts bearing the Superboy logo (Kon was always getting them tangled with Tim's things in the Tower's laundry), pants that Dick had grown out of but left lurking (they were too long and too loose on Tim's frame), a spare pack of heat suppressants (he preferred the shots, but those were under lock and key in the batcave refrigerator since they were technically less than legal), and a photo album he stared at for 3.2 minutes before he gave in and repacked everything so the album would be tucked away at the bottom where he could ignore it. (The album was full of steam rising from Alfred's scones, Dick smiling straight into the camera, Bruce staring into the distance in silent contemplation, Jack and Dana glowing with the first flush of new love, Kon striking heroic poses, and the rest of the Titans casually accustomed to Tim and his camera.)

 

His phone buzzed again, and this time it didn't stop. Like whoever was calling was bound and determined to keep going until Tim picked up. Tim still had his Titans communicator, so it couldn't be the end of the world or someone would be calling on that. 

 

Tim reached the property's edge and shimmied up the tree placed a little too close to the surrounding wall. It was one of three blind spots that Tim had scoped out back when his only relationship with the Bats was sneaking photos of them. A short jump and a controlled roll later, Tim was officially off the endless acres that made up the Wayne estate. The next house wasn't for three miles, and it would be another ten after that before Tim could reasonably expect to come across a car. He wasted a long breath lamenting that he couldn't bring himself to take his Ducati (partly because of the trackers, but mostly because Bruce had bought it), then he started walking. 

 

Or, at least, he put his foot forward to start, but then he wasn't on the ground anymore. 

 

"What the hell, man!" Kon shouted, which was quite unnecessary considering his TTK had them wrapped in a bubble that toned down the thunder of the wind to nothing but a dull hum. "You didn't answer your phone! How could you not answer your phone!"

 

"Is there a reason I should've?"

 

"Is there a--is there a reason? Dude! You're all over the freakin' place!"

 

Tim quirked an eyebrow and took a steadying breath to remind Kon that words were occasionally necessary to make other people understand you. Tim grasped Kon's tangents better than most, but nouns still mattered. Tim's words got lost in the rush of scent now bottled up by the telekinetic field surrounding him. "Oh, well, that… that makes sense then." 

 

Tim smelled like an Omega.

 

Which, he really shouldn't. His suppressors lasted a month, designed to at least keep him from putting off any scent at all, and when they were working properly, make him smell like a bona fide Beta. 

 

Considering that he had taken his last shot three days ago, and hadn't been exposed to anything other than sweat since then, he shouldn't be anything but an Omega. 

 

"How in the hell does this make _sense_? What happened?"

 

"It's complicated."

 

"Of course it's complicated. You're a friggin' _Bat_ man, you only do complicated." 

 

Tim didn't respond. Which, in hindsight, was a problem. But in Tim's defense he was accustomed to putting out the mild, steady scent of a Beta, and since it was chemically induced he always smelled calm. Omega scents were meant to be unpredictable, flitting about with every change of mood so that Alphas could properly tend to them. That meant that while Tim's words told Kon nothing, Tim's scent keened in pain at being called a Bat.

 

Kon slammed to a stop and all but dropped out of the air. He'd been flying due west, instinct making him take Tim towards home. (Tim chose not the think too deeply about how he hadn't objected to that.) Kon floated them both down to the empty stretch of forest below that made Tim think they were someplace in Pennsylvania. "What happened?" Kon croaked, entirely unprepared for the scent wafting over him.

 

Tim did not drop his forehead to Kon's shoulder, he absolutely did not. He may have let Kon continue to hug him, but he did not sink into the embrace and breath in Kon's steady, Alpha scent. "Tim? Tim, buddy, you gotta tell me what happened."

 

"I--" his voice cracked and he cleared his throat to force himself back to something resembling calm. "It seems that I've been replaced."

 

Kon stopped ten feet above the forest floor, too baffled to keep drifting. "What do you mean… replaced?"

 

"I mean--I'm not… Robin, anymore."

 

"You're… _what_?"

 

"I've been replaced by Bruce's son." 

 

Seven hundred different questions zipped across Kon's face before he finally ignored them all. Instead he settled on the clenched jaw that Tim could never decide whether it was from Superman or Luthor. It meant Kon wasn't going to budge. He pulled Tim tight to his chest and gave the slightest of shudders before he launched into the sky. The TTK field pulled tight around them to increase Kon's speed to something Tim hadn't seen him manage before. With his face pressed to Kon's neck, Tim took only the smallest, most excusable of sniffs and murmured, "I was planning on going to Blüdhaven."

 

Kon snorted. "Yeah, that's not a good idea."

 

"Dick wouldn't turn me away," Tim replied, with far less confidence than he would've had an hour ago. 

 

"Of course he wouldn't," Kon assured. His scent certain enough that something calmed in Tim that he hadn't realized was upset. "Dick may be great and everything, but he'll cave the second Batman turns up."

 

"I think that's overstating it a bit. Dick doesn't just--"

 

"He wouldn't cave because it's caving, he'd cave because he still believes Batman is always trying to do the right thing." Tim's own belief in Bruce made him want to argue that, but it was difficult to summon up words to the contrary when Kon felt so certain, and Kon was the one who was making him feel like perhaps he might not need to crawl out of his skin after all. "Dick might keep Batman away for like, a _day_ , but then he'll cave and let Batman talk to you."

 

"And you plan on keeping him away?" Tim poked, bemused.

 

"I'll keep him away until you don't want him away, there's a difference."

 

"I fail to understand the distinction." 

 

They put on an extra burst of speed while Tim spoke, his lips brushing across the tender skin of Kon's throat. "Th--" Kon's voice cracked. "The difference is that Dick would let Bats in when he was ready, and I'll let him in when _you're_ ready."

 

"And how do you intend to keep one of the world's best superheroes out of a Smallville farmhouse?"

 

"We're not going to Smallville."

 

Tim snickered. "You think Clark will help you hide me from Bruce in his shoebox of an apartment?"

 

"Not going to Clark, either," Kon replied smugly. 

 

"Hawaii, then?"

 

"Nope."

 

Tim mulled for a long moment, putting himself in Kon's position to try and think about what Superboy would consider to be the safest place to stash him. The answer slammed in to Tim with enough force that he couldn't believe that it hadn't struck him in the first place. " _Kon…_ "

 

"You gotta admit, it's the only place where you won't be turned over and your life isn't at risk at the same time."

 

"That's debatable." The rational, Robin part of Tim's brain began listing off all the reasons why going someplace Bruce couldn't reach was a terrible idea, certain that Bruce would come to his senses and realize that Tim was meant to be by his side. The Tim portion, however, slumped against Kon and trusted that his best had come for him. That somehow Kon had known that Tim needed him and had come running to Gotham to find out what was wrong. His Tim brain and his Omega hindbrain both knew that Kon was to be trusted, while tonight Bruce had betrayed them, and two brains outweighed one. 


End file.
